Creative Zen Micro Firmware supports Napster to Go

[James Fee]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.nomadworld.com/downloads/drivers/' target='_blank'>http://www.nomadworld.com/downloads/drivers/</a><br /><br /></div>Someone please explain to me what the purpose of PlaysForSure is because it isn't working as a guide to making sure your digital media player is compatible.<br /><br />Anyway, download your firmware here:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nomadworld.com/downloads/drivers/">http://www.nomadworld.com/downloads/drivers/</a>

[Felix Torres]

Someone please explain to me what the purpose of PlaysForSure is because it isn't working as a guide to making sure your digital media player is compatible.



Plays for sure means it plays WMA/DRM'ed songs.
(As well as the unprotected version, but that would be a given for 99% of the players on the market anyway.)

It does not refer to compatibility with specific music download stores/subscription services. Its the lowest common denominator, is all.

Remember, Janus is a separate technology from WM-DRM...

[James Fee]

Maybe in fact that is how it ends up, but I should be able to look for that logo and things work. Right now it is a crap shoot.

[sunazure]

Someone please explain to me what the purpose of PlaysForSure is because it isn't working as a guide to making sure your digital media player is compatible.


http://www.playsforsure.com/WhatIsPlaysForSure.aspx

Microsoft has done a really crappy job explaining PlaysForSure. That page does a decent job, but overall it's way too confusing.

The PlaysForSure logo means it supports Windows Media technology, but there are different levels [and logos] a device can support:

PlaysForSure Audio:
- Download
- Subscription

PlaysForSure Video:
-Download
-Rental
-Subscription

yet, they say if you just see the PlaysForSure logo on a device and on a music store, you are all set. "It Just works!" What exactly "It" is, I guess depends on the device.

too complicated if you ask me, but overall it's a good concept.

[James Fee]

&lt;snip>I actually wrote much about this (http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6697) back in October and I thought it was "killer". I'm not so sure now. Might have to revisit this topic.

[dane]

I've had a Zen Micro since December and finally got around to upgrading the firmware to the Plays for Sure version. I must say, I re-flashed my Zen back down to the previous firmware version.

I was interested in the newest update because it was supposed to allow me to connect the Zen Micro to an ZP/WMP 10 machine without any drivers. Well, Creative never mentioned that it would also make it incompatible with Creative's own software, nor were there any comments regarding the poor performance. While I could use WMP 10 or even Windows Explorer to drag and drop files to the device, it basically would hang after half a dozen songs or so. My machine was just completely re-imaged to WinXP, with only a moderate amount of software loaded, and very little running during attempted file transfers.

I finally got so frustrated trying to reload my music that I rolled the whole thing back. Thank goodness I still had the contents of the Creative folder in the Recycle Bin, because about 3/4 of the way through the re-flash process, I was prompted to insert the Creative disk to get a driver. The problem was that the driver was inside of an EXE and not available to the process. I was able to recover the Creative file folder and its contents which contained the necessary driver. This allowed the re-flash to complete.

Everything is back to the way it was before and I once again love my problem free player. I must agree, that Plays for Sure is a very low common denominator for some future interoperablility, but that right now, it appears that the actual implementations (at least for my Zen) are inconsistent.

[[email protected]]

I got the Zen Micro for my GF for christmas and I have about the same story about it as dane, except I'm still hoping it will come around. (In a white-knuckeling, hating it sort of way.)

Isn't it funny, Microsoft releases something new and suave claiming it will work smoothly...

And we buy it! Time and time again.